The Big Finish by James W. Hall Page B

far-off lights.
    He stared down at the earth beneath his feet, inhaled the night air of north Florida, a different scent than the sea-blown breezes he was used to. Here, well inland, the air was raw and edgy, seasoned by landlocked forests and stagnant marshes and the harsh industry of woodland creatures.
    All the years, all his passions, all the loves that had come and gone had led to this empty stretch of asphalt. At that moment he could think of nothing he’d done with the heft or significance to match all that he had not done or done poorly. In all his reckless abandon, his high-minded quests, what justice had he brought to the world compared to the hurt and devastation he’d left in his wake? His own heedless behavior had corrupted his only son, sent Flynn off on a self-destructive path, a do-gooding quest that led inevitably to violence and injury and possibly death. Thorn’s fault. All of it.
    Behind him he heard a car and he turned and watched the headlights approach. When the car lights shined on him, he lifted his arm, thumb out. High beams in his eyes.
    The car slowed and pulled abreast, a radio playing loud. Two teenage boys leaning over to inspect him.
    “Where you headed?” the passenger said. A thick-necked kid with spiky hair, his voice slurred by drink.
    “Nowhere,” Thorn said.
    “Nowhere?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Hell, buddy, you don’t need a ride. You’re already there.”
    The driver laughed and gunned the engine.
    “Get in,” the driver said. “We’ll take you far as we’re going.”
    Thorn looked ahead at the empty road and back the way he’d come.
    “No, thanks,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind.”
    The boy in the passenger seat stared at Thorn for moment, decided he’d been insulted, and reached back into the car and slung a half-empty beer can. It bounced off Thorn’s chest. The wheels threw up a hail of pebbles and the car squealed up the highway. Thorn watched until its taillights disappeared.
    By the time he made it to the motel parking lot, he was worn out, heavy-footed, finally ready for sleep. But heading across the parking lot he caught an odd shimmer inside the burger joint. When he steered that way for a better look, he saw the flicker and lash of flames spiraling from the kitchen.
    Thorn trotted over, first on the scene.
    The black kid who’d been mopping the floors was spread-eagled facedown on the floor near the front doors. He was a teenager, skinny. Dark fumes poured from the kitchen. Flames were twisting around the passageway between the galley and the serving counter, and the plastic menu signs with garish images of burgers and fries were melting, spattering molten beads of color onto the floor where more flames lashed up and over the counter, taking the napkin holders and the straw dispenser, reaching out for everything they could touch and consume.
    Thorn shook the handle, locked and searing to the touch.
    The kid was probably overcome by smoke. His body seemed shriveled inside the restaurant uniform. Thorn pivoted away, searched the area for a battering ram and saw a nearby trash bin made of galvanized wire mesh.
    Thorn pushed it over, knocked off its domed top, and dumped out a day’s worth of food sacks and paper cups and diapers, rolled the bulky can down the sidewalk to the front window.
    From the kitchen came a flash then a concussion that rattled the windows. The deep-fat fryers had exploded or some other accelerant had supplied the fire a new rush of fuel, and a ball of flame appeared at the passageway, a seething mass like some Greek serpent, an orange hydra’s head with coils and loops of flame sprouting in every direction. The kid was vanishing inside the smoky haze.
    Heaving the trash bin onto his shoulder, maybe thirty or forty pounds of unwieldy weight, Thorn took two steps forward and crashed the base of the container against the widest, seemingly most vulnerable sheet of glass.
    A spiderweb of fractures radiated from the dent, but the